


Fight Club (Star Trek AU)

by sangueuk



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:42:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangueuk/pseuds/sangueuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary</b>: Through the academy years, Kirk and McCoy share a secret. Kirk runs underground fight clubs for men to work off their frustrations. How will he rein himself in and become fit for command?<br/>While artistic liberties were taken with the timeline and while the Fight Club book and movie are heavily referenced, it’s mostly business as usual for the boys.<br/>Intriguing snippet: <i>Kirk had stripped to the waist, his lean, muscled torso covered in a sheen of perspiration, his sweat pants riding so low that McCoy could make out a fine line of hairs beckoning beyond the waist band.</i></p><p> </p><p><b>Warnings</b>: dirty, rough sex, language, violence (not too graphic but there is some blood so beware if you are super-squeamish),and some mild cut lip kink</p><p><b>Disclaimer</b>: I mean no offence and court no profits, these boys belong to others more talented and deserving, I merely borrow them, play a while then return them all cleaned up and smiley.<br/>In response to The reel_trek challenge 2009<br/><b>Thanks to:</b> emiliglia for beta reading.<br/><b>Complimentary art:</b> http://juneinblue.livejournal.com/5637.html?view=35333#t35333, by  juneinblue</p><p>(author notes at the end of part 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Fight Club by Sangue**

 

 **Now…**  
James T. Kirk is about to blow the whole thing through the roof.

And yes – he might be wearing the scratchy, gray jumpsuit – but Bones knows they still haven’t got him where they want him.

The bridge is ready. McCoy has taken his seat and scans the weary faces around him. He’s as pissed off as the rest of them.

The first time there'd been excitement – and fear, lots of fear. Every cadet dreads the test, and they know they’ll be backed into a corner and ‘die’ – ok, it’s a 'virtual' death, yet they all know they’ll suspend their disbelief and will be seduced by terror.

The second time there’d been a sense of hope. They knew Jim Kirk well enough that they hoped the wonder kid might just pull something off.

The cocky bastard sure had them fooled.

But today – they’re just tired of Jim. He’s lost some of his brightness, and the question on everyone’s face, written in their rolling eyes and bored voices is – why doesn’t he just give up like a good little cadet?

Thing is, they don't know Jim Kirk like McCoy does.

He remembers everything. Jim doesn’t know how to lose.

 

 **Before...**  
McCoy closed his eyes tight, pressed the wet paper towels to them and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the mirror. In an attempt to ground himself, he splayed his legs in the tiny confines of the shuttle restroom and braced his feet against opposite walls, maybe trying to make the coffin-sized stall bigger while claustrophobia, aviophobia and thanatophobia clamored to overwhelm him.

Panic. Adrenaline prickling first in his legs then a rush when he heard take-off would be in a few minutes and could all passengers please ensure they'd fastened their harnesses?

He couldn't move. With his eyes closed, all his senses rallied information and dumped it into his guts – the stench of ammonia from the pan behind him, the rumble of the floor and walls and the basin he gripped, the sound of his heart, and even though he'd tried to be blind and shut out his reflection, stubble, dirty hair, the eyes of a madman. Shit – he looked like the kind of guy he'd have warned Joanna to cross the street to avoid.

A bang on the door.

"Sir! I'm going to have to insist that you come out of there now, or I'll be forced to call security."

Dammit.

He unplugged his eyes and threw the towels into the chute. Jesus, he looked worse than he had a few minutes ago; the towels had ruffled his eyebrows and those shadows under his eyes – he'd never seen them so dark, so pronounced. Sure, he looked like he'd seen a spook – his own reflection told him that he was the scariest fucking ghost any kid could hope to see on Halloween.

"SIR!"

He could have taken a remedy to clear up his poor liver, rehydrate his skin and chemically suture up that goddamn esophagus of his. My God he must have drunk that whole bottle – except for the drop he'd used to top off his flask. Holy shit, he'd slipped back into his old ways, planning for his next bender when he hadn't even finished free-falling into the current one.

He tapped his pocket to reassure himself. How he'd managed to blag his way through security with his booze he'd never know. Maybe he'd scared them with his wild eyes as well as his standard “I’m a doctor, dammit” tirade.

The panic wasn't going anytime soon. He'd tried using the sick bag to breathe, calm himself down, but it hadn't worked.

The banging on the door was becoming more insistent.

"SIR! I've called security."

He took one last look at his reflection, noting with a sneer that his tongue was the color of brimstone, and fumbled with the lock. They still kept old-fashioned locks on the doors – too many occasions where cadets had tried to override the security so they could hide during the flight. This was what happened when you put brains the size of planets into kids who'd only just learned how to wipe their asses.

She backed off when she saw his face, smelled his breath.

"Sir?"

“Let go of my goddamned arm; I'm not an invalid!" He loomed past her, a little ashamed that he could be so damned rude. Still, he shook off her light touch and folded his body into what looked like the only seat left on the shuttle.

He drew in his stomach muscles – damn, he should have taken that remedy, but he’d made a conscious decision not to for he knew it might have given him a get-out clause if he didn’t take it. There had always been the possibility he might sleep in late or be too hungover to get on the shuttle in the first place.

The get-out clause hadn’t worked. He was _here_. Very here. He swiveled in his seat to get a hold of the belts and felt a jolt of something when blue eyes gripped his.

"I may throw up on you," McCoy said, taking in the bruised face and quizzical expression.

And that was how he met Jim Kirk.

++

"You are quite simply the singularly most interesting person I've met in years," McCoy told Kirk.

"See this!?" Kirk waved a Starfleet pamphlet under McCoy's nose. He slouched in a black leather jacket that looked like it had been dragged around the block a few times, a crumpled seal gray T-shirt, jeans with a belt that could have done with another belt-loop, and biker boots.

 _The classic fuck-you uniform – and he was trading this in for cadet red?_ McCoy thought as he half-listened.

"We're not the master race, what is this shit?” Kirk said. “The arrogance, sending kids out to die on barren planets, taking away their common sense, inadequate training...” He talked about ‘kids’ like he wasn’t one himself. “Doesn't it make you sick?"

No. Not really. McCoy felt very far from sick after five minutes of talking with Jim – the madman in the restroom had faded into the shadows again. He remembered when he’d been like this, when ranting was his default about politics, advertising, women, medicine. Now his default was numbness.

He found he couldn't take his eyes off Kirk's mouth. Pale pink lips, like a woman's if he was honest, a perfect curve, perfect balance, a little dry – the kid couldn't seem to keep his tongue away, and if each word he’d uttered had been written down, every flick and sweep of the tongue across the bottom lip, each pout, each pause as it momentarily stilled just behind his teeth, were like punctuation marks and paragraph breaks.

"Betcha half these kids have been thrown out of somewhere, running away from something and this BULLSHIT seduces them here, into the pyre."

"Do you even believe any of this crap, Jim?"

And Jim gave him a look which might have meant ‘not really.’

His name was something new in McCoy's mouth; he was still testing how it felt to say it. Why did it feel illicit? Was this his subconscious warning him? Well, fuck his subconscious seven times sideways – cautious McCoy was gonna take a backseat for a while. This was the first time in a while he hadn't thought about how he'd been taking it up the ass from lawyers, Jocelyn and Sons, specialists in fucking over Leonard McCoy.

 _I am McCoy's regenerated stomach lining._

The phrase surfaced in his mind and reminded him of something.

"Wanna hear about some really dumb government literature?" McCoy said.

"Dumber than this?"

Kirk was doodling on the safety leaflet while McCoy spoke, "Yeah, maybe…it’s these pamphlets I collect, they're vintage, antiques I guess, see I'm a doctor..."

"Are you?" There was genuine surprise in his voice; they'd been talking for an hour at least – how come it hadn't come up yet? Was it that long?

"Yep, so...I have a hobby, a passing interest in matters medical."

"That must be a relief for your patients, knowing you have a _passing interest_." Kirk chuckled, resting the hip flask between their seats. It hadn't escaped McCoy's notice that what was his had somehow become Kirk's already. It also hadn't escaped his notice that he really didn't mind.

"Asshole.” He almost smiled. “I collect pamphlets they gave out, maybe at support groups, or after an op,” McCoy said. “Say you’d had a splenectomy, you'd get a leaflet – nothing odd there, but it’s the tone that tickles me. It’s like the patients were mentally deficient in the 21st C. _I am John's raging spleen_ ,” McCoy shook his head as he remembered, delighted at Jim’s grin. “And John’s spleen tells you what it’s like to be raging. There are cartoon drawings."

"Anthropomorphized organs. I'd _really_ like to see those!"

He handed back McCoy's pen and slipped the safety leaflet back under the seat. Then he fucking winked at McCoy. It wasn’t adrenaline that hit him – something else – something he completely refused to even acknowledge.

"What did you do?" McCoy cleared his throat. He realized that his cheeks hurt a little – those underused happy muscles getting a work out at last.

He slumped forward and retrieved the leaflet from under Kirk's splayed legs. He really didn't notice how Kirk's eyes brightened as his face got a little bit closer nor how his own groin throbbed hard and quick, like a flash of light – blink and you'd have missed it.

"I think I'd better take that, Cadet Kirk." He said in an imitation of a severe tone, not sure when he’d last felt this light.

He examined the safety leaflet. Kirk had drawn speech bubbles, alongside the drawing of two male passengers seated next to each other.

"We're going to die. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds," one said.

"I've always loved you," was the other passenger's response.

"I might throw up on you," was the reply.

"You trying to tell me something?” McCoy chuckled, neither recognizing his own tone nor his daring.

"Hey, even I don't work that fast!" Kirk smirked, punching him on the arm.

"And did I really say that?"

Kirk shrugged, "You were kinda crazy --"

+

They’d signed in on landing and while the rest of the first year cadets had gone to pick up room allocations and reclaim baggage, Kirk steered McCoy by the elbow to the nearest campus coffee shop.

"Looks like you could do with something to eat.”

No one had shown any concern for McCoy since a few days before Jocelyn had thrown her first plate.

 _You're Starfleet's bitch now_. Hey, McCoy thought to himself, _that's some kind of belonging, right?_

McCoy watched Kirk knock back his third coffee.

“Doesn’t it strike you as strange that all these amazing minds, all this creativity and these kids, rather than take a risk in life, end up here, hanging on to momma's apron strings?”

Which begged the question, "So why the fuck are you here?" McCoy raised an eyebrow.

“Hey that's a good trick.” Jim leaned across the table and touched McCoy's eyebrow, sweeping his thumb from forehead to cheek. McCoy’s throat suddenly felt like someone had stuffed a towel down it. Shit – this kid was something else.

He leaned back to regroup, looking at Kirk’s hands as they held the cup. His knuckles were raw, the wounds at least six or seven hours old; why hadn’t he had them treated? And why had neither of them mentioned how beat up he was?

Outside, there was an awkward moment, as they prepared to part. Kirk pulled his jacket close against the autumn chill. McCoy didn’t want this to be over so he said, "So what happened to your face?" looking at his feet.

Kirk smirked, "You'll have to buy me a drink if you want me to reveal my dark secrets to you, Bones."

Bones? Where did that come from? He felt a warmth in his belly that hadn't come from pity sex or alcohol abuse in longer than he could remember.

Kirk somehow persuaded him not to go to baggage reclaim – _you don't need that shit man,_ and McCoy for the first time on many occasions in the next few weeks, found himself passively - albeit snarkily – following James T. Kirk.

McCoy knew that he'd pick up his bags later, but for now he wanted to fool himself into thinking that he was as free as his new friend, so he trailed behind, taking in the shape of him, trying to work out who he was, watching the slim hips as he made his way through the crowd of recruits. The kid didn't push, didn't do anything, but it was like someone carried Jim through and people simply got out of his way.

 _I am Leonard McCoy's shiny new transplant ego._

++

Days passed.

McCoy had gotten a grip. He'd collected his room allocation, settled in (he’d dumped his bags on the floor and hadn't yet opened any drawers), started his shifts at the hospital, pissed off a couple of nurses already, combed his hair down (at least while in uniform), outlined the classes he needed to teach, avoided all other cadets and he hadn’t had a drink.

Eight days.

 _I am Leonard's sparkling liver._

Thinking about Jim had helped him not think about booze. Mostly.

++

McCoy had taken to making up haikus to calm himself when the urge to crack open the bourbon threatened to overwhelm him. Listening to music made him too sad, and the rhythm of the words and the way he counted out the syllables with his right hand somehow helped take his mind off of stuff. He wondered if he’d been foolish enough to write them down if they’d have revealed who the damn hell Leonard McCoy was these days. He was glad he couldn’t remember any of them.

 _Eyes blue like the sea  
Fucking me with their pale light  
My heart stops and stares_

That one he made up on the shuttle. Damn it, he was a doctor, not a poet.

++

Ten days.

This time he's logged onto the daily, virtual AA meeting. He was late because he’d needed to pick up a half bottle of bourbon on the way. The other one he'd poured down the sink and had instantly regretted it. He had no intention of drinking this, of course, but he kept it out of sight of the screen nevertheless.

"Hi, I’m Leonard McCoy and I'm an alcoholic."

And he wasn’t really, he told himself, these meetings were just one way he passed the time. Sure he drank a little too much but he mostly liked their calm faces, the determination of the other alcoholics and their stories. Usually he wouldn't participate, just watch, crying silently, reminding himself that his life could be worse, it really could.

He reached around the screen and unsealed the bottle of bourbon. He'd just have a sniff, remind himself what he'd have to look forward to in a couple of days once he'd passed his self-imposed fast.

And then he saw him, Jim Kirk. He hadn’t set eyes on him for days and yet there was his face among the thumbnails on screen looking right back at him. He looked beat up but not beat down. Kirk winked at him – just like he had on the shuttle that time. Shit.

“Screen off.” He said.

He lasted about five seconds then asked the screen to come on again. Jim had gone.

The whiskey burned when he gulped it. Made him feel fucking alive.

++

It was quite something, how much drink they put away.

Kirk had been gone around fifteen minutes, and it was some kind of homage to Jim that McCoy felt guilty, _oppressed_ for even looking at his watch. For even _owning_ one. Up until now, just loosening his tie felt deviant, but Kirk was unlocking something in him he hadn’t come across since he was a teenager and had soon squashed by redirecting it into science projects and straight A’s – rebellion and not in his words but rebellion as an energy. McCoy glanced over his shoulder, having thought he’d seen Jim in the reflection behind the bar, but no, he wasn’t there. He shook his head, not really sure what he’d seen _if_ he’d seen anything.

There was one other thing he needed to wrap his head around – this sexual undercurrent. Kirk obviously flirted, seduced, fucked to get what he wanted. And to get out of what he _didn’t_ want. It didn’t seem to matter to him whether it was a man, woman, alien or plant-life. Maybe that was it – maybe he was taking a while because he’d been distracted by the smell of pussy. He wondered whether to order another drink. And wondered again why the hell Kirk was even here at the academy and how the fuck did he even get in? He thought back to their first meeting, how he didn’t seem to have any luggage, no friends, no credits. McCoy had paid all night and it amazed him that he didn’t really mind paying, just noted it as a fact.

He looked at his watch again. Shit. Took it off and tucked it into his breast pocket. This was dumb. He needed to go home to his shitty room and pass out. He didn’t move.

Maybe he should go get him? He looked around the bar – a few stragglers, no cadets that he could tell and the music still loud, down a pitch, insistent like someone was trying to hypnotize them.

In the restroom, the stench of piss hit him full in the face and someone had hurled on the floor. No sign of Jim. He noticed one of the stall doors was shut and just below the roar of the music in the bar, he could hear grunting. Hmm, someone needed more roughage, he thought grimly. Better take a piss now that he was here. He turned to the urinals and unbuttoned his fly – the grunting, what the fuck was going on with that? From his legs braced position, he twisted awkwardly, leaned back a little so he could look over his shoulder – as much as he could do with the stream of unstoppable piss demanding his attention. He could just make out a shadow under the door.

McCoy tucked himself away and crept towards the stall, checking behind him in case someone spotted what he was about to do and he got pounded on for being a perv. The sound of faint, insistent grunting could only be one thing. His cock understood before his mind did – someone in there was fucking and when he saw those bruised knuckles clinging to the top of the door, he knew exactly whom.

Face flushed, he tiptoed out, narrowly missing the puke, and made straight for the bar.

“Put a shot in there and gimme a cigar. A big fucking cigar.” He growled at the barkeep, handing his flask over. He hadn’t had a cigar since Joanna was born but needed something to suck on, something to do while he waited all nonchalant outside.

He leaned on a trash can, legs crossed at the ankles, working on looking casual, his head overloaded with the stench of tobacco, whatever roadkill was decomposing in the trash behind him. The cool fog worked its way through his clothes to his limbs but hadn’t done anything to cool his cock which ached with a longing he hadn’t felt for anything that hadn’t come in a glass in a while.

Then he saw him.

 _I am Leo’s burning heart._

He was straightening the waistband of his slutty black jeans, buckling his belt as he advanced. The bastard swaggered like he’d gotten the cream, his ox-blood leather jacket slightly off his shoulder, pulling aside the massive collar on a shirt that looked like it had seen better days. It always amused him how unstructured yet sexy Jim’s clothes were. What a contrast to the academy reds which he also managed to look drop-dead in. Under the street light, McCoy saw a smirk and no hint of remorse for having disappeared for at least half an hour.

“You pissed?” he said, teasing the cigar from McCoy’s mouth and taking a pull. Now that was obscene – he made a show of parting his lips some before he actually put it in his mouth, eyes on McCoy. Shit if he was like this after sex, what would he do with those eyes and that mouth before?

Kirk dropped the cigar to the ground, stepped over it and leaned close to McCoy who was unable to back up because of the trash can, his ashtray tongue sweeping once across McCoy’s top lip.

“Hit me,” he said.

“ _What_?”

Kirk punched him lightly on the arm. “I said _hit_ me.”

“No. Why?”

“You’ll feel better for it, that’s why.”

McCoy looked at his cigar, smoldering at their feet. Yeah, the bastard had no respect. He straightened, tightened his lips, and barged forward hard, both hands making contact with Kirk’s shoulders and sending him staggering back.

Fucker just laughed.

“I said hit me.” Kirk rearranged his shirt. He needed to get less slippery clothing, McCoy thought. Kirk clenched a fist, unclenched it, threw his arms wide, unafraid. Insolent fucker. Before he could change his mind, McCoy slammed a punch at Kirk’s jaw. Fuck that hurt! He shook his right hand, cupped it into his left, and grimaced, a hiss of pain escaping.

“What was _that_?” Kirk mocked, taking a moment to rub his jaw and shake his hand out as if it was snot and not pain he was releasing into the litter at his ankles. McCoy saw something cross his eyes, dark in the shadow of the street lights; maybe Kirk transformed at night into Dr. Jekyll and before he could finish the thought, Kirk had barreled into him, head down like he was a bull and McCoy a red cape.

“Uff!”

It took him a second to get his breath back, staring up at the street light, panting, noting how all that pent up rage, squashed, _drowned_ in a fucking barrel of booze, responded to this attack by shooting _up_ from his toes, raising him up like Frankenstein’s monster and he was up and pounding on Kirk’s laughing face before he could stop himself.

Thuds and crunches and the sounds his pillow had made when he thwucked it in rage after he’d read comms from Jocelyn, slammed the phone down from his gram, almost shaken the door off its hinges – no one fucking _go_ t it – he wasn’t the bad guy. And Kirk hit right back, two, three punches, one in his stomach, one to his left ribs and then he saw his fist flying towards his cheek.

“Not my face!” McCoy managed to gasp, “my patien—” but it was too late, he could taste the blood in his mouth and smell the metal tang and he really didn’t fucking care.

Kirk had suddenly stopped hitting him. He seemed to have decided to try wrestling and had wrapped his arms around him, looping his leg over McCoy’s ankle, and pushed and pulled against him. McCoy resisted, groaning, grimacing, wasn’t going to fucking lie down, no fucking way but the eyes had flicked to a different mode again and McCoy was reminded of those tests glasses opticians used to use a couple of hundred years ago where they’d slot one lens after another till they found the best combination. Kirk’s mood changed, the color changed, and it was as if a new ‘lens’ slipped over his pupils. How many fucking blues could there be?

McCoy hit the ground like a sack.

His spine dissolved under the influence of cerulean, he thought acidly. Wasn’t fair, he thought. He stretched out, was _laid_ out by Kirk, his hands on either side of him like he’d been loosened from the cross. McCoy couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything, panting, in awe of how Kirk slowed down, became graceful – a dancer not a fighter – how he moved one thigh across McCoy’s chest and straddled him, like he was gonna brand his ass. McCoy quivered, waited, his cock hard as hell, their chests heaving in time. Kirk considered a moment then ducked down and planted an open-mouthed kiss on his tender mouth.

“Ouch.” McCoy whispered.

Kirk’s eyes widened. Ok, so he was going to have to start carrying color swatches around if this was going to keep happening. “Cyan -” McCoy said out loud.

“Sighing?” Kirk echoed. “Lotta stress, dude. That’ll be why you’re sighing –” And when his broken lips settled against his, he grabbed Kirk’s t-shirt at the small of his back and fucking pulled the bastard close, harder so he could smell the whiskey and the come. Pulled him closer still so he could taste the blood, unsure who’s it was, didn’t care, and then in one impetuous movement, he rolled them so that Kirk was the one on his back, their lips still grasping at each other, bruised fingers scrabbling, dragging down shoulders and arms, hips grinding hard.

“Get a room.” The voice behind them was melodious, filled with humor and innocence. “I enjoy watching two males, it’s very stimulating.”

An Orion girl, wearing pink heels, torn stockings, and a grosgrain duster, a cigarette hanging from her lips. Her eye makeup was smudged.

“Wanna watch?” Kirk said over his shoulder. “I thought you were, as you put it, ‘sated’.”

“It is late, Jim, and I need to rise early for class tomorrow.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. Kirk hadn’t made any effort to pull away from McCoy. “You wish to accompany me? A further, quick sexual exchange would assist in my sleeping.”

Kirk looked at McCoy, lifted away from him elegantly but stayed with his legs braced over him. “Mind if I love you and leave you, Bones?”

“I don’t recall any lovin’.” McCoy rubbed a sore hand across his face. Kirk leaned down, bunched McCoy’s T-shirt at his chest and pulled him up to meet his lips again. “I should rename you Knuckles, not Bones.”

“Fuck off, Kirk. You don’t get to choose my name.”

But he’d strutted off, arm through the Orion girl's.

 _Some soft place whispers  
Secretive shadow beats this  
Time into the dawn_

It hurt when he counted the beats.

++

His shift finished at midnight. He recognized the silhouette immediately. Kirk paced across the parking lot outside the hospital, dropped a cigarette butt and ground it underfoot.

He grabbed McCoy’s hand.

“You need to see something.” His bruises had faded McCoy saw when Jim had spun him round so their faces were close; he could tell he’d eaten something with fries a few hours ago, could smell beer.

“What?” McCoy was beyond tired and his feet ached.

“I want you to come with me.”

He wore a white tank, black combat pants, flip flops and a gray hoodie with a fraying cuff and he sported a smirk the size of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Bones.” His tone was calm, insistent. He slipped his hand around the back of McCoy’s neck and pulled his face closer. “Just let go, man.”

“What and end up a delinquent like you?”

“And _live_.”

“Listen, you idiot, I’ve _lived_ plenty. Matter of fact, the living has worn me the fuck out. Tonight other people have lived thanks to Leonard McCoy – don’t fucking tell _me_ how to live.” He shoved him hard on the shoulder and brushed past, slinging his messenger bag over his coat, heading home to his shitty room. He stopped, looked back at Kirk who’s head was cocked to one side, thick brows holding steady while he waited for his, yes, _inevitable_ capitulation. “I’ll need to get outta these scrubs,” he mumbled.

Kirk was by his side in two bounds. “Wear something washable,” he said.

 _I am Bones’s quivering intestine._

++

It was the smell of a dog pound but the wolves were all men standing in a circle, emitting cheers and whoops like barks and growls as they got off on the spectacle before them. McCoy pulled back, grabbed Jim’s arm.

“What the fuck is going on in there, Jim?”

Jim looked towards the circle when he heard a body hit the deck.

“It’s men, Bones.” He grabbed McCoy’s jaw with one hand, making his lips purse ridiculously, “Come on!”

“Jim, I-“

He heard half a dozen voices call “Jim!” and “Over here!”

++

Kirk had stripped to the waist, his lean, muscled torso covered in a sheen of perspiration, his sweat pants riding so low that McCoy could make out a fine line of hairs beckoning beyond the waist band. His feet were bare and McCoy was annoyed with himself that he thought his toes looked vulnerable on the wooden floor. What a mother hen he was.

This was fucked up – he found he was more frightened than he’d been since the shuttle ride, looking at the group of lascivious faces and hoping to god they wouldn’t ask anything of him. All eyes were on James T. Kirk.

He’d never seen Kirk with a large group of people before, how they hung on to his every word, how he performed for them, like this was the most natural place for him to be. His arms were folded but this wasn’t a defensive posture, this was a king surveying his court; his biceps pumped, his face bright and his hair all messed up from taking off his shirt, he was Mars.

“The first rule of Fight Club,” he said, “is we don’t talk about Fight Club!” Each rule pulled a roar of approval from the twenty or so men present. When Kirk had finished, he stepped into the circle and the men closed around him.

A guy, much taller than Jim, thicker set, stepped forward. “Can I be next?” McCoy heard him say.

Jim nodded and said, “Lose the tie.” They squared up.

McCoy’s heart seemed to flutter; he didn’t want anyone to hurt Jim yet he felt a prickle of adrenaline, excitement and fear sending blood with no conscience to his groin.

“What are they gonna do?” he asked a guy near him.

“Find out who they are,” came the reply.

He got the feeling Jim knew who he was already.

It was like butchers hauling and dropping sides of meat, like trees falling in the forest, it was like landslides – it was like Mother fucking Nature. The newbie, lying on his front, his face pounded, blood dripping from his nose, caught McCoy’s eye. Jim sat crouched over his back, bunched his hair in a fist and dropped the guy's face onto the floor. The newbie raised his hand and Jim stumbled back. Both men were grinning broadly.

Jim seemed to move towards him in slow motion, his own lip busted up, fixing him with baby blue – the innocence of a child in the body of a man far older in his soul than his allocated twenty two years. McCoy simply couldn’t hear the feet stamping, or the hands high-five-ing, or the spontaneous cheers. He could see the wild faces, the raised fists pounding the air like they were practicing for the brutality when it came to be their turn. He knew what was coming, he’d heard it in the rules. “If it’s your first time, you’ve got to fight.” Needed to calm down, counted, counted.

 _That rich cloud pleases  
Cascading further wounds this  
Dream to a new life_

He parted his lips as Kirk advanced and began to remove his shirt, responding to an unspoken instruction. It was the rules. And he knew Kirk wouldn’t protect him just as his opponent, a fucking great slab of meat with a bowling ball head, arms and legs like fence posts, wouldn’t hold back. Looked like he was going to find out who he was.

“Hold your hand up when you’re done.” Kirk whispered hotly into his ear.

“What if he’s broken my fingers?”

That night, what he found out was that he could feel. He remembered.

++

In the cab, Kirk slid over so their thighs touched. They were both wired. McCoy’s mouth felt raw and swollen yet he felt no pain whatsoever. There had been a point in his initiation when he had moved beyond it – he knew it was adrenaline, endorphins, flooding him but fuck that was amazing. He had managed to raise his hand – just and he’d seen Jim’s feet appear in his line of vision from his position on the floor.

“I want you next time,” Jim had said to the bowling ball with arms and legs.

++

He didn’t want the evening to be over.

“Who would you fight, in real life?” Kirk asked him in the cab.

“The guy who screwed my ex.” McCoy said, without hesitation. “How about you?”

“Frank.” The slight incline of Kirk’s head was enough information that McCoy knew not to push.

++

The cab pulled up outside a ramshackle, centuries old three-story house.

“Just ask me, man? Why can’t you ask me?” Kirk breathed close to his ear.

Because he wasn’t a girl?

“I’ve never seen your place,” McCoy said, trying not to sound actually interested. It was his way of asking. He might as well - he’d finished at the hospital until the following Tuesday night so one late night wouldn’t kill him. What a rebel, he thought sourly, the way he weighed up the pros and cons like an old man.

“It’s a shit hole.” Kirk laughed. “Really is.”

It really was. Why couldn’t Kirk stay on campus like the other cadets? He kicked open the front door and pulled McCoy in after him by the cuff of his shirt.

“Home sweet home,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

“It’s a fuckin’ barn,” McCoy said, leaning his head back to survey what must have once been a magnificent ceiling. He stepped over fist-sized pieces of plaster and circled slowly to take it all in. “Must cost a few bucks to heat.” Like Kirk was the kind of guy who paid bills.

“I’m planning to stay with you a lot over the winter,” Kirk said, pulling two beers out of the refrigerator. He’d tossed his jacket on the banister, and McCoy ran his eyes across his body, hoping his want was disguised by a new found passion for shitty décor.

A bowl sat in the middle of the floor down the hall to catch rain water. It had been dry for days. Wallpaper hung in blisters and curls, and the lights hummed.

“You were right about it being a shit hole.” McCoy grimaced, forcing his tender lips around the bottle. He felt a jag of heat in his belly when Kirk caught his eye while he drank – if you could call it drinking, the way he fellated it. Jesus.

They were still in the hall. Kirk turned to catch McCoy’s eye then took the stairs two at a time. He paused at the top. Took another slurp of beer. Burped.

“You fucking coming?” McCoy watched his beautiful ass as he turned away and, figuring he’d use the same system that he’d employ if he were ever called upon to make it across hot coals. Beer in hand, he almost ran after Kirk, striding over a missing step and deciding against the hand rail when it leaned away from him at the first touch.

He hesitated at the last step. Kirk waited, leaning easily against a doorway, and he looked as if he wasn’t going to budge to let him past. His tongue swept across a bloodied lip.

“Should let me take a look at that face,” McCoy said, edging closer.

“You’re looking at it now.” Their eyes were level, and the short space between them thrummed with tension.

Kirk sipped his beer, hooked a finger into McCoy’s belt loop and tugged him close so their hips collided. McCoy reached his free hand out to the jagged cut on Kirk’s cheekbone. His fingers hovered over it. Running entirely on instinct now, he moved his mouth towards the injured cheek, breathing softly over it. Kirk still held onto his belt loop and rolled his hips up and forward as McCoy lowered his mouth onto the wound to salve it gently with his tongue. It tasted of salt and iron. He felt how Kirk winced almost imperceptibly. Then he pulled away and back again to plant another healing lick on Kirk’s lower lip and chin.

“I’m a healer, not a fighter, Jim,” he said, surprised at the gruffness in his voice, responding to a questioning look from Kirk and moving to the other cheek. Licked again. He heard a thud and roll when Kirk dropped the bottle, which freed his other hand up to slide it around and cup McCoy’s ass.

 _I am Bones’ aching prostate_

He wanted to fix Jim, tend to his wounds, but found the sight of them more arousing than anything he’d ever seen. Was it because he knew how Jim had gotten them? This was no victim, rather a warrior, a soldier for whom combat was a part of his nature. He was totally attuned to it, and he’d found a way to bottle it, contain it. What added to the feeling of confusion was that McCoy’s lust was loaded with a bubble of aggression threatening to surface any moment. It looked like the bastard wasn’t going to let him past without a struggle though.

“Move,” Bones hissed.

“Make me.” Kirk’s eyes burned into him.

McCoy was so hard he thought he’d fucking break his cock if he didn’t bury it into Kirk’s ass within the next five minutes, so he changed tack. He wrapped his hands around Jim’s neck, pulled him roughly and slid his tongue into Jim’s mouth, fucking his lips, paying no heed to how sore they must be, not caring if it hurt; he just needed to do this.

“Gonna fuck you,” he said, low and even, and he pulled back to take a look at Jim’s face. His eyes were dark with lust, lips pouting, challenging.

“What if I don’t want you to?” Eyes wide and innocent – chin out, his tone, daring – _azure_ McCoy thought.

He fumbled Jim’s sweats down – they gave easily and slid past his thighs, releasing his cock. McCoy brought both his hands up to the top of Jim’s tank, grabbed the shoulder straps and yanked them down to Jim’s elbows in one rending move.

“I’m gonna make you,” he growled. He wrapped his arms around Kirk’s waist and lifted him easily; his face was against Jim’s chest as he carried him to the bed, dropped him unceremoniously and drank in the sight of his amused face and how he sprawled before him like a poisoned meal. “This is what I get for fightin’,” McCoy drawled. “My prize.” The sweatpants were hanging off Jim’s ankles, his cock flat against his belly, his tank ripped and loose, hair every which way and eyes like the Pacific. And he had that whole “I dare you” face on. Well, surprise, surprise – he did dare, goddammit. McCoy pulled the sweatpants off, kneed Jim’s ankle to position him better and unbuckled his jeans. “I’m gonna fuck you, Jim,” he repeated.

Jim let out a breath and his mouth gaped. He’d never known him so quiet. Bones allowed his jeans to drop to the floor, then his underwear and kicked them away. He stood hard and aching.

“Where’s the lube?”

Mesmerized, Jim indicated the nightstand with a gesture that seemed to take a lot of effort. He pulled his feet up a little closer to his ass, ready, wanton, not putting up a fight. Bones crawled up the bed, panting a little, his back aching from the pounding he took earlier, his hand smarting a little at the knuckles. He pressed his face into Kirk’s belly where a long scratch adorned the glorious muscles like a twist of thorns. His tongue followed the line down to the hair below and stopped. He heard Kirk hitch a breath, felt his cock bob so very close to his chin as Kirk slid his calves gently behind McCoy, not pulling him close, just resting them there. Jim had become passive, like he was being worshipped or something.

“Anyone else ever done this to you, kid?” His tongue headed up towards Kirk’s nipples, noticing large bruises forming near his ribs, nipping soft then hard so Kirk arched off the bed.

“What? Kissed me?” Ah, there was that tone McCoy liked so much – a hint of scorn and what-a-dumb-question. He knew that, despite appearances, Jim was still in charge here.

“More than kissed you?” McCoy explained. He sat back on his heels and grabbed the lube again, squeezing far too much on his hand, gliding it across Kirk’s balls then down and back to the heat waiting for him, grinning when Kirk winced at the chill of the gel. He wanted to get in quick, figured the kid could handle a bit of discomfort. “Done this?” he said pushing two fingers in hard, loving the look of shock, the defiant narrowing of Kirk’s eyes.

“Oh.” Kirk moaned, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

His arms were splayed on either side of him as he watched McCoy prepare him, clutching at the filthy covers, the bed creaking under them as they shifted. McCoy noticed his eyebrow had a spot of almost black blood on it, his nose slightly swollen and, despite these marks, he was still perfection, his eyes lowered but not in modesty. McCoy was pretty damn certain that Kirk didn’t know the meaning of the word.

“Well? Have you?” No answer told him everything he needed to know. McCoy slid one hand under Jim’s ass to get him at a decent angle; he’d not done this either, but he knew anatomy well enough to get everything right. He hesitated when he saw how beautiful the battered Kirk looked. He’d have to concentrate or the sight of all the tan skin, the perfect muscles, the pale pink nipples (the same color as his lips), the red of the blood and those fucking eyes, egging him on, might make him come before he’d gotten all the way in. McCoy gave the base of his cock a squeeze and took a thumb full of pre-come off his cock then reached across Jim’s chest to his hands. He kissed each wrist and anointed both pulse points with his pre-come. Jim gulped and responded by grabbing McCoy’s arms, his nails digging hard into the flesh.

“Fuck me,” he hissed right into McCoy’s face. His teeth held McCoy’s lower lip, pulling. Pain always seemed to be just a second away for both of them. “And don’t be too gentle.”

“Shit.” McCoy pushed in a little but already further than he would have done without Jim’s encouragement.

Kirk grunted loudly, dropping back onto the bed. “Hurts,” he grunted. McCoy waited. “More,” he managed to say eventually, and this is what they did – pushing, stopping, taking, moaning, redrawing the lines, meeting each other half way. McCoy licked a trail on Kirk’s leg where it pressed against his face, raking his nails along his arms, wherever he could reach, the pleasure a distraction from… _there_ …all in. He’d planned to wait and allow Kirk to adjust to being full, but Kirk tilted his hips up, opened his mouth, and said one word.

“Hard.” The single syllable took two attempts to force out.

And it was all he needed to hear, pulling nearly all the way out, then slamming back in, watching in wonder at what each stroke did to Jim’s face and reveling in the pitch of his grunts.

Jim keened under him, groaned and moaned and McCoy knew it wasn’t all pleasure, but, Jesus, he was so fucking tight, so beautiful when he fucked him like this. He could fix him later, but now he just wanted to mark him where no one could see, and Kirk scratched and clawed at him to get him deeper to make him move harder until he grabbed his own cock and pulled hard. With a cry of “Jesus!” they came one after the other and collapsed like trees in the forest.

 _A white sound shivers  
Kiss me and crucify me  
Death into the light _

(continued in part 2)


	2. part 2

**Fight Club – part 2**

  
True to his word, Jim spent more time at McCoy’s place as the winter set in. He only disappeared when Gaila called.

_I am McCoy’s garroted stomach._

McCoy observed that it was after fighting and fucking that the volume turned down on everything in Kirk’s life. He worked for hours on assignments, went for long runs, hummed under his breath, but if too much time passed between bouts, he got angry, started to bitch and didn’t turn up for classes.

“Doesn’t matter – I can catch up in a blink,” Kirk practically purred from McCoy’s bed where he stretched out in a yin-yang long-sleeved T and gray, fucked up combats. And he wore a straw hat. It was winter and they were indoors, for fuck’s sake. His feet were bare. “You finished with the computer?”

“Sure – why the fuck not?” McCoy scraped his chair back and a PADD fell off his lap. “I’m a fucking boy wonder – I don’t need to work all fucking night to stay afloat.” This needed to change – he needed ground rules. _They_ needed ground rules.

He knew that if he even broached the subject of what this all meant, he wouldn’t see Kirk for weeks.

“Did the whole twenty-first and second centuries completely bypass Georgia, Bones?” Jim snarked once when he raised the subject of what their friendship ‘was’ in as a round about a way as a guy could, which meant talking about it by not talking about it.

Then he hit hard straight to the sternum with a plain statement. That got him. “I believe in knowing where you are with someone you fuck,” McCoy growled.

“Bed, up against a wall, on the floor, over your desk, my boudoir –“

“Shut the fuck up, Jim.”

God he wanted to kiss him, but there were no rules. For months now it had always been at Kirk’s invitation – sure, McCoy got to top but that, again, was just because it was how Jim wanted it. So he dropped the subject.

++

Jim took McCoy’s computer to the bed and sat up close to McCoy.

“What are you doin’?”

“Mischief, my friend, mischief.”

He watched as Kirk hacked into the campus mainframe. He added pornographic images to the daily news packet. He fucked with Admiral Bennett’s keypad codes so he couldn’t get into his quarters after a late night. He changed the ingredients of the officer’s replicators, in particular one for Professor Spock, a Vulcan who that week had him removed from the class roster when Jim had insisted on doing puzzles during his classes. Professor Spock had better get used to drinking strawberry shakes.

“Well, if he had some intonation in his voice, just every _other_ week, I’d pay attention!”

“You’re an asshole. The guy's a genius – you could stand to learn some humility, Jim.”

Later that night, Jim had crawled into bed next to him, stinking of other men’s sweat and wincing when the lights came on to reveal his smashed up face.

“Let me get the regen.” He’d already swung his legs out of the bed. Jim touched his elbow.

“Fuck me first.”

_Thank you._

++

McCoy had managed to avoid Fight Club by making sure he worked at the hospital, saying he was tired or had work to do. Kirk usually let him, but tonight was different. Monday would be the test. Again. Jim wanted to get himself in the right frame of mind.

“I need you tonight, Bones.”

He’d never said that before. So how could he have resisted?

_I am McCoy’s tumored brain._

He wasn’t going to fight. The other time had been a one time deal. McCoy had hoped that it might have been over for Jim too since he hadn’t been for weeks; he’d been busy on the computer, in cahoots with Gaila who was helping him out a with a mystery project. Good – she kept Jim sane, grounded, so McCoy could get on with his life and ignore the near-permanent ache he experienced in his groin when Jim was anywhere near him. Tonight he wore sweatpants, a white T-shirt and sneakers. And aviator sunglasses.

“It’s dark – why are you wearing sunglasses, you idiot?”

Kirk teased them slightly down his face so he could peek over them. He pursed his lips. Fuck he was hot. He didn’t answer because what could he have said? _’Cause I’m hot enough to carry it off?_ He really was.

“So who would you fight that’s famous?” Bones asked him.

“Hemingway.” He said. “How about you?”

“Shatner.” McCoy said. He chuckled cause Kirk had no idea who he was talking about.

Tonight’s Fight Club was under a bar. Lights off, just moonlight seeping through the barred window to the sidewalk and the muffled sound of music from above them. The men removed items of clothing like they were preparing to fuck, eyeing each other as they jerked belts out of belt loops, shucked off socks and shoes, tugged off shirts and abandoned jackets in a heap and handed watches, rings and comms to bystanders as if paying a toll to fight.

Jim had taken off his T-shirt and tucked it into the top of his pants, waiting his turn. An early spring night, the air was heavy with body heat and groans, slaps and bellows of disbelief, pain or admiration depending on whether you were the one being pummeled or dishing out the pain.

McCoy was beginning to worry that this insane behavior was going to jeopardize Kirk’s career. He seemed to be coping with the massive workload fast-tracking inevitably brought but that wasn’t enough – McCoy sometimes wondered if it wasn’t for Pike how Jim would still be at the academy because of the offense he caused with his insolence and rebellious actions. He usually attended his lectures but often as not drew elaborate doodles or read an old-fashioned style novel or browsed his PADD. When he was pulled up, he was always able to recite back verbatim whatever the last piece of information had been.

“Ah! Finnegan!” Kirk roared as he stepped into the ring. You weren’t supposed to bring the outside in, but it seemed like this guy had rubbed Kirk up the wrong way by playing a couple of practical jokes on him. McCoy never feared for his friend’s safety – just his reputation as officer material.

The fight lasted about three minutes with Finnegan being dragged out by the ankles, swearing and making fists at Kirk.

“Hey Bones, not really in the spirit of Fight Club, huh?”

He shook his head and a spray of sweat mixed in with blood anointed his T-shirt, which McCoy now held for him. He retrieved it and rubbed his face on it. Jesus. He had a welt on his cheek that drew attention to his eyes. They had changed from stormy to lagoon in that short space of time. The healing power of fighting for Jim Kirk.

McCoy folded his arms and stood beside him, more than a little aware that he must look like the good little wife waiting and watching. This thought filled him with a mixture of disgust and want, pretty much summing up his friendship with James Kirk to date. Annoying bastard.

“Can we go now, seeing as you’ve got that out of your system?” he groused.

“When I finish my cigarette.”

McCoy resisted the lecture.

Finnegan sidled up and handed Jim his own shirt, and they nodded and shook hands. Kirk waggled his eyebrows at McCoy to ensure he’d noticed he now had a trophy. He handed McCoy his smoke to hold and through his narrowed eyes – the smoke was annoying – he watched Jim pull it over his head, almost gasping at the sandy-colored hairs under his arms and the way the fabric clung to his chest, above one nipple, until he could straighten it. Then he ran his hands through his hair and took the cigarette back. He leant over and gave McCoy a wet kiss on the side of the head.

Before them, the latest pugilists were in the zone, tops of their underwear showing over their loose pants, cuffs hanging underfoot, charging, battering their opponents over, then punching into each others shoulders with one hand while clinging tight with the other, now writhing in a heap. Their bodies fell onto each other haphazardly, legs onto bellies, arms across backs, grunting and moaning, and one man inevitably huffing his surrender so they fell apart like sated lovers – a look of joy from the other, and they finally stood, both adorned in chiaroscuro patterns from dirt and sweat.

++

After Fight Club it made sense to go back to Jim’s. In the cab they dry humped in the back seat, Bones unbearably hard and needing to work off some tension of his own.

They didn’t make it up to the bedroom. McCoy booted the front door shut behind him, overpowered Jim from behind and shoved him roughly onto the stairs, reaching around to pull his cock free, then dragging his pants and underwear down in one easy move.

“Fucking stay there,” he rasped and retreated to the kitchen to hunt out some make-shift lube. Kirk waited exactly where he’d left him, resting on his elbows, his ass white in the moonlight, craning to see McCoy as he slicked up.

“You wouldn’t be so tense if you’d gone into the ring,” he said as he waited for McCoy to open him.

“I’m not. Fucking. Tense.” McCoy grunted as he breached him, seizing Kirk’s hip as he worked and made inroads into the tight heat under him, pleasure swirling in his groin and back erratically, an orgasm threatening to overwhelm him within seconds if he didn’t slow the fuck down. He couldn’t look at Jim again until he’d gripped the base of his cock hard, thought about viruses, antidotes, anything... Rain had begun to fall and the bucket was collecting it with loud, echoing TLANGS as each droplet hit the enamel.

“Come on, Bones, you can do better than that,” Kirk goaded, his voice muffled as he pressed his chin into his chest to get the angle right and his ass higher. He was going to get splinters on his knees, McCoy thought, back under control. He dug his fingers into Jim’s shoulders, yanking him back brutally. He managed to get almost upright and gain maximum leverage, each bucking movement forcing out a grunt or moan from Jim. He began a relentless pounding into Kirk, their bodies dueling for who would lead this dance. Kirk reached back to scrape his nails down McCoy’s thighs, creating sharp twitches of electricity which all found their way to his cock. He worked an arm under Kirk’s knee to change the angle, his back protesting, not daring to hold onto the rickety banister.

“Jesus, it’s thundering,” Kirk managed to chuckle.

“Yes. Very cinemat…ic. Fuck that’s good, fuck, fuck...”

“Harder, Bones, hurt me, fuck me hard.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he managed to get out, his breaths short and angry.

“But it’s good like this, so good.”

This was no good – he slid his cock out and twisted a surprised Kirk around. “Want to see you,” he mumbled into Kirk’s chest as he pushed him back down so he sprawled on the stairs. He thought about the bruises Kirk would have on his back in the morning, licking up his neck, loving how he flopped back, how his mouth strained and he blew out gasps and breaths, in the language of wanting and needing, each one code for fuckmefillme, and he thought his heart would burst as he grabbed Kirk’s hands and guided them so they could hold onto his shoulders, bring him in deeper, make them both feel and remember this.

“Love seeing you come, Bones.” McCoy had his eyes shut tight, the last notch of feeling evading him at this point. He could smell their sweat, and he wished he’d undressed completely, his jacket and shirt driving him crazy, restricting his movement; his thighs burned with the effort. “You gonna come for me?” A crack of thunder startled McCoy into opening his eyes. Jim’s face was brightly lit as another flash of lightning exploded around them with thunder just a couple of seconds behind. McCoy stilled. God he was fucking gorgeous.

“Touch yourself,” he said. “And do it hard.”

Kirk’s eyebrows looked blacker than usual in the poor light and made his eyes by contrast look like – shit – he’d run out of blue colors. This was the most beautiful fucking thing, he thought, that he’d ever _fucking_ seen – Jim gazing at him like that, his bruised lips, sore from his kisses and nips as much as from the fighting, pursing at him now.

“Gonna come,” Jim said hissing out his pleasure.

With a final lunge and twist of his hips, McCoy was close behind him, overcome by a savage orgasm of his own, baring his teeth as he reared up and pulsed into Kirk’s bucking body, digging his fingers into any part of Jim’s limbs he could grapple with and pulling away from Jim’s mouth when he bit into his lower lip.

“That fucking hurt,” he said, sweat dripping off his face, his chest heaving.

“I know – fucking great.” Jim smirked, untangling one of his legs from behind McCoy, working it between them and placing a foot on McCoy’s chest to shove him away.

“What’s that, Queensbury Rules?” McCoy grouched, holding back a smile as he almost lost his balance and clung to the banister. It gave slightly under the weight. “We really should try this with our clothes off and maybe a bit of foreplay some time.” Shit, he shouldn’t have said that; it made it look like he wanted to change things.

“I need a bath,” Kirk said, his tone impenetrable. He pushed up easily, peeled off Finnegan’s shirt, unwound his pants and kicked aside his shoes. He seemed to be weighing something up, then he planted a kiss on McCoy’s half-open mouth. His breath was warm. He pulled away, and McCoy realized he was gaping in surprise. “Wanna come?” McCoy watched Kirk’s perfect ass cheeks move out of reach. “And get the whiskey.”

_I am Leo’s leaping liver_

++

Kirk lay in the bath, a wash cloth in one hand, a cigarette and tumbler of booze in the other.

“Who would you fight from history?” he said.

“Gandhi,” McCoy said. He sat at the foot of the bath, drinking, his feet on the mat, his free hand trailing in the water.

“Good answer!” He hooked an ankle onto the edge of the bath.

“How about you?” McCoy said.

Kirk put his cigarette out in the water and threw it across the room. “Lincoln,” he said. He stretched the wash cloth out, draped it across his face and sank lower in the water. “There’s room for two,” he said.

“You gotta stop doin’ this,” McCoy said.

“The water’s plenty hot still,” came the muffled reply.

McCoy grabbed Kirk’s ankle and pulled so that he slid under the water. “No, you stupid fuck. _This_.” He indicated the peeling paintwork, the tarnished mirror, the bare, broken floorboards.

Kirk rubbed the bubbles off his face as he sat up again. “I’m moving out tomorrow morning.”

“But isn’t it the fucking test again tomorrow?”

McCoy rose from the bath and went to pick his jacket off the floor, searched in the inside pocket.

“The _fucking_ test is at noon. ‘Sides, most of my stuff’s at your place.”

McCoy rolled his eyes. He wanted to say “What’s the point? Why bother?” but when Kirk made a decision, he’d not yet met anyone who could talk him out of it.

He stood up in the water, the bubble bath clinging to angular limbs, temporarily making him look like he was carved out of shaving foam and marble. McCoy handed him a dingy towel.

“I’m gonna call a cab. I’ll see you on the bridge tomorrow.” He slipped his jacket on, watching as Kirk rubbed the towel over his lean yet muscled shoulders, across the sprinkling of hair on his chest, and how he opened the towel out and pulled it backwards and forwards across his back and his ass. His cock wanted him to stay really badly and maybe take a shot at the foreplay. His comm buzzed. The taxi had arrived.

++

 **Now…**  
“Should we at least, oh, I dunno – fire back?” McCoy says wearily. He can’t see the technicians and assessors behind the “star field,” but he can imagine them rolling their eyes, their despairing looks. A bit like Kirk’s “crew” are doing now.

Kirk sits in the chair, like a kid on a ride, with an apple in his hand, like Eve’s just given it to him, like he’s tasting possibility and sin and his own power. McCoy senses he likes the taste so much that nothing else is ever going to live up to this feeling, nothing else will ever feel this good. It’s written all over his face – this is his last appearance in the ring, in the theater. This is his last Fight Club. Next time it’ll be for real. The kid can become a man if only he can pull through this with dignity. No fucking chance.

The Klingon warbirds explode and fall away into the void, their brightness gone, yet Kirk is still there; he’s still alive and owning that chair, the uniform’s wintery color brought to life by the brightness in him.

Kirk glances at McCoy for just a second. He can see the scabs already forming on his knuckles where he clutches what’s left of the apple. He slides around in his chair to address Uhura. “Signal the Kobayashi Maru. Tell them they are now safe, and their rescue is assured. Begin rescue of the stranded crew.”

McCoy’s heart leaps. He’s done it. Shit. He’s something else. He’s fucking glorious – he’s beaten the test, but what worries McCoy is that it’s all going to be over for Jim before it’s even begun. He catches up with Jim outside the simulation area.

“Are you out of your mind? How the hell did you do that? How long have you been…?” Then it dawns on him. “You’ve been using my computer…shit.” He stops and spins to face Jim who’s grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He smacks Jim hard on the shoulder. “You dick. One thing to fucking finish _your_ career, but to end mine before it even gets a chance to get going again?”

“Stick with me, you’ll be fine. I’m fucking bulletproof!” McCoy isn’t so sure, looking at the black eye that was forming. “I showed them. There is no such thing as a no-win scenario, Bones – how many times have I told you that?”

“As you know, Jim, I write down all your quotes and catalogue them by date and time just in case you or someone else should ask me such a question.”

Outside his room, Kirk keys in McCoy’s number. They step past half a dozen boxes and a couple of bags.

“Secure doors,” Kirk says to the computer.

McCoy glances apprehensively at him. Kirk has that look, the one he gets after fighting. How come he gets the feeling that he’s going to be dessert?

Kirk advances towards him.

“Jim, I –”

“What?”

“I don’t think you realize how serious this is!”

“I’d surprise you.” His hands go to the neck of his uniform jacket and he unbuttons it slowly.

“Well, you’ve done that plenty of times already.” McCoy mirrors him. Their jackets fall open in unison.

Kirk bends to loosen and kick off his boots. So does McCoy. They toe simultaneously into the space between them.

“We’re working as a great team, here.” Kirk grins.

“Yeah.” His voice is beat up as he remembers how what Kirk has just done may get him kicked out and their great team may have just suffered a fatal wound. “Best stripping duo ever to come out of the academy.”

Kirk’s comm buzzes.

“Ignore it,” McCoy says. He knows who it must be and that they don’t have much time before the bubble bursts, the shit hits the fan, everything goes belly up…shit, the haikus were better than this, but his heart pounds like fists and he needs to… And suddenly Kirk is there, invading his space, pulling McCoy's T-shirt up over his face and tossing it to the side. He sinks his face into the crook of McCoy’s shoulder and bites him hard. McCoy grabs him by the hair. “No.” And Jim licks the spot, which smarts and throbs and will bruise. “Let’s do this different, Jim. We don’t need to hurt each other.”

Jim rolls his head and takes his mouth on a lingering tour of McCoy’s jaw, his cheek, the bridge of his nose then back down to his mouth, invading it with a hot tongue while his hands head south and struggle with the fastening of McCoy’s uniform pants. McCoy thinks this is a great idea and undoes Jim’s too.

“See, you just can’t help following me,” Kirk chuckled. He scoots his hand across McCoy’s forehead. “Look at these lines – you worry too damn much.”

“I didn’t have any fuckin’ lines before I met your sorry ass,” McCoy growls and walks Kirk back to the bed.

“You pissed, Bones, 'cause of what I did? Worried they’ll blame you too? Like you had something to do with it?” Kirk pushes his pants and underwear down past his thighs and pulls at his cock. “Well, look at what you do to me. _Just look_.”

“Me makin’ you hard isn’t a court-martial offense. If it were, we’d both be in the brig.” He’s naked too now, his cock at a slight angle in front of him, not quite flat against his belly, and it swings a little when he pushes Kirk back onto the bed, “Got it, _cadet_?”

“Next time we fuck, I’m going to be stripped out of command gold, and you’re gonna call me Captain when you come.”

McCoy barks out a laugh. “You seem very sure of yourself, kid.”

McCoy is flush along Jim’s body, kneeing his thighs apart and stretching awkwardly to the night stand. He drops the tube by Kirk’s hip. Next thing he knows, he’s been wrestled over, and Kirk’s on top, looking down at him, practically drooling onto his face. “I always get what I want, Bones.” He kisses him long and languorous, exploring every crevice of his mouth and then increasing the speed. He takes a breath and leans into McCoy’s ear, “They can’t beat me; I can feel it. I’ve won the biggest battle.”

“I don’t think… Shit, Jim, maybe you should answer your comm…”

“I love to win, and I always get what I want.” He picks up the lube. “But there’s one frontline I haven’t crossed yet.” McCoy shudders as he listens, as Kirk slicks himself and puts plenty of lube on him.

“Please don’t say 'one final fucking frontier' or I’ll break my new oath of peace and thump you, so help me.”

“One final frontier.” Jim chuckles, catching Bones's fist with a lubed hand before it reaches his shoulder. “No more fighting, Bones. I’m done. I need you on my side.”

McCoy raises his hands in surrender. “Take me – I’m yours.” He lets Kirk lift his legs over his shoulders and braces himself. This was going to be one hell of a ride.

~FINE ~

N.B. There is now a ‘deleted scene’. For that, go to part 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The second rule of Fight Club is that feedback makes Sangue happy**.
> 
> This is an homage to the novel, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, and Fight Club the movie, directed by David Fincher which are heavily referenced. Did you spot, haikus, self-help groups, vandalism, Marla, fuck-me clothing, subliminal images, explosions at the end (warbirds) and anti-authoritarianism? You betcha’! I left a lot out too but this got bigger and bigger so I had to draw the line plus I wanted to keep it in the Trek universe although it’s still definitely AU.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from the movie (who would you fight ?, Just ask me), and also some from Star Trek the novel by Alan Dean Foster (shuttle and Kobiyashi Maru scenes). One of the lines from a haiku is lifted from a Rufus Wainwright song - ‘kiss me and crucify’ – from Go or Go Ahead. Oh and if you want to write haikus as brilliant as mine *coughs* go  here 
> 
> If anything else strikes you as wonderful, I may have lifted that too. Or maybe not.. ;D
> 
> Tyler and the other guy didn’t fuck in the movie – I really wish they had. Oh well, at least we can rely on Kirk and McCoy to keep the slash flag flying!
> 
> And please be reading the 'deleted scene' in part 3!


	3. Pandora's Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A 'deleted' scene from the original fic -( written as a birthday gift for emiliglia). In this part, McCoy can’t seem to control his addiction to Jim.
> 
> Intriguing snippet: _Over the months McCoy’s stayed away mostly, and he’s still only fought the once. Fight Club comes with its own rewards for him – you can keep the man-high, fuck the adrenaline rush – it was Jim, _always_ Jim. _

**Pandora’s Box**

 

This is Leonard McCoy’s life, one scene at a time:

He wakes up next to Jocelyn.

He wakes up on their couch.

He wakes up in a motel room bed.

He wakes up at Starfleet Academy.

He wakes up with a crust of Jim’s semen on his thighs.

+++

McCoy’s lying on his bed and he can’t get to sleep.

He hasn’t seen Jim for days -- it hurts and not in a good way.

 _I am Leonard’s weeping heart_ , he thinks.

Outside it’s raining and he’s alone. Still. He glances at the chrono – 03:00 – he’s been home for hours staring at rain patterns on the ceiling.

He remembers a scene in a movie once where this guy asks his doctor if you can die of insomnia. He remembers laughing out loud at that. He’s still in his scrubs, still wearing his sneakers and no socks.

Images of Jim crawling into bed with him a week ago haunt him. He was all sweat-soaked clothes and bruise-lipped, cock hard and hungry for _him_ , for what McCoy could give him.

McCoy’s hands are fists by his thighs – he’s a grown man, a father, yet his life consists of unpaid bills, piles of laundry, and half-eaten replicator meals scattered over every surface, and the recycler’s broken and full of bottles.

But, at the hospital McCoy’s polished, brilliant and efficient – no one can hold a candle to him. In his reds, he’s pristine and smart. His assignments are excellent, always on time. It’s like he’s two people.

Jim’s biker jacket’s on the back of a chair. You’d think there wasn’t room in McCoy’s life for anymore shit, but it’s like those piles of trash – someone drops one piece of crap, then another joins it and, before you know it, the pile’s multiplied exponentially overnight.

Not so long ago he was picking out soft furnishings for his perfect little home back in Georgia. Maybe it was a lifetime ago.

+++

By the time McCoy reaches the club he’s soaked. He fell asleep on the hover-tram and has to backtrack through deserted streets to find this shit-hole basement serving as a temporary venue for tonight’s Fight Club.

He’s deleted the comm message sent to all members; just a couple of words – Jim and his damned love of cryptic clues - he’s worked out the name of some dive or other, a warehouse or abandoned building, there were no further details, no time, no date; he’s had to work the rest out by cracking the code and now he’s hunting around, tracking the smell of testosterone and blood through the streets like a twisted junky.

Over the months McCoy’s stayed away mostly, and he’s still only fought the once. Fight Club comes with its own rewards for him – you can keep the man-high, fuck the adrenaline rush – it was Jim, _always_ Jim. He only lets McCoy touch him after a night in the circle, fired up and fucked up, his face bright and bruised like fallen fruit, raw fists gripping McCoy’s cock, nails that have raked through other men’s skin and scalps, will drag through McCoy’s hair and across his back. He’ll find his way into McCoy’s bed and make silent demands with his mouth and eyes until McCoy fucks him into a peaceful sleep.

Thing is, McCoy can’t even count on that, and he’s never dared make a move other times, worried to find out what the reaction will be. He’s learning to settle for what he can get, crumbs off the prince’s table so to speak. Maybe Jim would have come over anyway, maybe McCoy doesn’t need to be walking the streets in soaked jeans and on the edge of shivering with cold. _Jim’s predictable in his unpredictability, that’s for sure_ , he thinks as he turns the corner into an alley.

McCoy hoped he’d be able to stay away but the pull’s too strong – curiosity too sharp. Even as he wavers, with his hand held in a fist so he can knock on the door covered in fraying flyers, McCoy senses he _could_ turn back. It’s just he really doesn’t want to.

 _Physician heal thy self_ , he mutters to himself, and not for the first time in his life when he considers his addictions. He’s pretty sure he could give up booze in a heart-beat, but give up Jim? Maybe tomorrow, maybe just one more time, maybe in the spring when he’s generally more cheerful anyway and he’ll be better able to deal…

+++

It’s quiet like church in the basement, stinks of sweat and men, men who fight instead of fuck, who punch instead of talk and there’s a tight circle, a wall of wolves surrounding a deer at the centre. He can’t see Jim anywhere so he knows he’s probably the one in the ring – but why so quiet? McCoy feels a prickle of adrenaline skitter up the back of his legs and he pushes forward, ignoring the shoves back and shoulder barges – maybe Jim’s really hurt this time…

McCoy’s shoulders drop and his cock twitches when he sees Jim, adorned in sweat and blood-smear war-paint, straddled over some guy’s chest. Jim’s lips are close to his mouth and the guy’s staring up at him, listening to whispers, waiting for Jim to do something, as are the rest of the rabble. Eventually, Jim throws his head back and laughs, He gets up and holds his hand out to help the guy to his feet, and then, they’re like best fucking buddies or something, arms round each others’ necks, and Jim places a kiss on the guys forehead and pushes him away. He takes a lit cigarette from someone nearby and the heavy air is suddenly full of laughter and braying voices as if a blister’s been popped.

Idiots, the whole fucking lot of them.

Jim turns; his eyes are bright and he looks a little buzzed. He often looks like this and McCoy’s learning it’s not necessarily booze or something worse – just the high of combat, leaving him fuck-stoned and in a momentary trance state. He’s beautiful – hair golden, skin coral white; he looks like a devil inhabiting an angel’s body and McCoy wants him so fucking bad he’s gonna grind his teeth to stumps at worst, give himself a migraine at best, unless he can bury his cock in Jim’s ass before the night’s through.

Then Jim sees McCoy and he’s bouncing towards him.

“Bones!” and he punches him on the arm like he always does, when what McCoy wants is something else, and then presses his lips to McCoy’s like he doesn’t do nearly enough, and McCoy’s fighting a smile and feels his cheeks burn with the realisation of how much his moods are affected by this skinny little shit.

“Hey, asshole,” McCoy says, clearing his throat, the words he _wants_ to say cloying to his tongue, bitten back just in time.

“You wanna get out of here?” Jim doesn’t ask why McCoy’s travelled half way across the city in the middle of the night, why he’s soaked and doesn’t comment on his dark circles.

Jim never wants to ‘talk’ yet he never shuts up, and McCoy realises, as they leave the basement side by side, that he feels more himself than the last time he finished up a bottle of whiskey.

They stop outside a dark store front and McCoy squirms as the tension mounts in his guts. Jim’s gone quiet for a whole half minute, and McCoy can feel those blasted eyes boring into the side of his face; yet he can’t turn to look at him ‘cause Jim might be able to read him – he might see how much he wants this and it might frighten him away. In a heart-beat, the tide changes and Jim’s pulled him into the shadows and is grinding against him, sucking at McCoy’s neck, his hands fucking _everywhere_.

“Jesus, Jim,” he grunts when he can reclaim his tongue long enough to form a sentence, “it’s late, we should get back… _fuck_ …” and Jim’s unbuckling his belt and palming McCoy’s cock, his hand caught between denim and the cotton of his underpants ---his eyes are wide, half an inch from McCoy’s and he watches, a smirk on his face as McCoy huffs and gasps and comes _too damn quick_ right into his clothing, with Jim breathing heat against his ear, muttering obscenities, about wanting his cock up his ass, _hard_ , without any lube, _now_ , and,

“You’d like that Bones, wouldn’t you?”

McCoy’s panting, his shoulders loosen at last, his hands flop open at Jim’s waist and he’s breathing deep and slow for the first time in days. Exactly seven days since they last did this. He notices it’s stopped raining at last.

“I can hear birds,” he croaks, “we’ve become nocturnal for chrissakes.” McCoy laughs, grabs Jim by the shoulders and spins him round, slams him against the shuttered window. He sinks to a crouching position biting through Jim’s two sizes too big, plaid pants along the length of his erection, “And what the _hel_ l are you wearing?”

“Take them off if they offend you,” Jim smirks and McCoy obliges by teasing them half way down his thighs, not surprised that Jim’s commando. He takes a moment to enjoy the sight of the impressive cock in front of him. He’s sure he can feel the heat radiating from it to his face and he glances up at Jim. His eyes are closed, his head thrown back and McCoy’s torn between sinking his teeth into Jim’s exposed throat of taking him into his mouth but, he never gets the time to act – there’s an amplified voice behind them,

“ _Citizens! Raise your hands above your head where I can see them_!”

Oh. Fuck.

+++

And as if McCoy’s life couldn’t get further in the shit, here he is, sitting on a hard bench in jail. It’s gotta be all over now, _surely_? He glowers at an unrepentant Jim who’s leaning up against the far wall, legs crossed at the ankles, examining his knuckles and picking the torn skin from them. He sees how McCoy’s eyes are sweeping the length of his body, and waggles his eyebrows like a talk-show host.

“No!” McCoy almost shouts, but Jim never takes no for an answer, not when it’s really _I want to but I’m too fucking scared of upsetting the balance of my life_. He’s always goading McCoy, reminding him what a stick-in-the-mud he is and it’s not _fair_ ; Jim has no idea what it’s like having responsibilities, a reputation to maintain.

McCoy rubs his hand through his hair and looks at Jim again. Christ, he’s a picture, in those dumb, thrift-shop pants and his shirt undone too low at the neck and too high at the waist, the white polyester gleaming in the moonlight that’s seeping through the bars of the cell. The pattern’s floral, poppies or something, fuck if he knows - he’s a doctor, not a botanist - but red anyways, and McCoy’s not sure how much of the colour is print and how much is blood. Maybe Jim won the shirt in the fight; it might explain the way it clashed with the pants but just as likely he picked it out himself – yeah, poppies for peace – the irony’s not lost on him. Jim’s disgusting, ox-blood leather jacket’s draped across his shoulders like he’s waiting for a hover-tram in Rome, rather than to find out if they’re going to be charged for indecency. They’ll throw them out of the academy for sure – McCoy will end up back in Hicksville and Jim can go back to whatever-the-fuck loser jobs he had before.

“Captain James T Kirk, _my ass_ ”, he mutters.

“What’s that, Bones, you calling me Captain and want me to take your ass?” He snickers and for a second, McCoy actually hates him.

“How you can joke…”

Jim’s gonna get hit for the second time tonight if he’s not careful, but the thought obviously hasn’t crossed his mind – everything’s crowded out by adrenaline apparently, because Jim finishes unbuttoning his shirt and exposes the line of honey coloured hair which drives McCoy fucking crazy when he thinks about it while he’s jerking off.

“And, I said _no_!”

“Why, Bonesy? Scared?”

McCoy strides towards him, looms his face right into Jim’s space, shoves one hand on Jim’s chest, splays another on the wall next to Jim’s head and almost spits he’s so fucking mad. Jim’s back hits the wall like a punch-bag. Only Jim could utter ‘ouch’ like he’s coming, and McCoy wonders why he makes him so fucking hard, why it is that whenever he’s with Jim all he wants to do is fuck or fight him. And, how it is that when McCoy surrenders to these feelings, this anger, this need, he feels like Jim’s stuck a flag in him and taken him as his own? McCoy’s ruined, ruined for anyone else – no one makes him feel so fucking scared of dying as he does because being with Jim, this, fucked up as it is, makes McCoy feel more alive than he has for years.

“ ‘Course I’m scared, you dick, I don’t want to get thrown out , and I’m guessing, neither do you -- or are you too dumb to see that? All you can think about is _your_ cock, _your_ needs, the next godamned ‘high’ – you need to grow the fuck up!” He slaps his hand into the wall.

That got rid of that annoying grin. Jim lowers his eyes but McCoy’s on a roll, his temporary calm brought on by their grope in the alley washed away by the rain, by time, by being so stupid as to follow this _kid_ over the cliff by deluding himself that jumping is better than standing still, staying behind, carrying on alone.

“We’ve fucked up, Jim, _really_ fucked up. _I’ve_ never been arrested – maybe you can take this shit in your stride with---“

“With my record,” Jim finishes for him. He looks at McCoy properly, his left eye twitching a little, maybe he’s not as unconcerned at he looks. “It’s fine, we’ll be fine,” he whispers and looks to the side, and McCoy wishes he could see inside that damned head and know what he’s thinking. Then Jim shares his mind-blowing solution to their problem,

“Pike’ll get us out.”

“That’s _it_? That’s all you got? You’re going to make a shit strategist, Jim, _really_.”

Jim won’t look at him. He shifts uneasily to the side, trying to get some breathing space and McCoy’s aware of how intimidating he must look but he’s really had enough of how everything’s always butter-side down in his life while this golden boy and his charmed existence. “You’re an uppity little shit, Jim, and you need telling. Maybe, you’ve always got someone lookin’ after you, bailing you out. Well I haven’t – _I’m_ a fuckin’ grown-up – I’m the one who should be fixing _you_ , the one posting bail ---“ He almost says ‘taking you home’ but, even at his angriest, McCoy always holds something back. Shit, he held back all the time – Jim’s right – he’s only half-awake and the only time he’s bright, safe, sure and himself is when he’s a doctor. Now that’s all gone to shit.

Jim clears his throat.

“Just so you know…I…well, put it like this, I know a bit more about looking out for myself than you think…” Are those tears in his eyes? Surely not…the prize fighter, the charismatic genius has a weakness after all… McCoy wants to get out the world’s littlest violin.

“What, with your fists? Is that all you got?”

“Bones, _stop_.” Jim’s voice is steady but quiet. “I’ve got _you_.”

Something flares inside McCoy at that moment, something small, but bright; in this Pandora’s box which comprises ‘friendship’ with Jim Kirk over these past few months, he can almost make out a kernel of hope.

“Jim, I’m…” he softens, looks into the impossible blue, past the bruise blooming on Jim’s cheek, and wonders when he makes out his own image reflected back at him, if maybe, just maybe, Jim needs this as much as he does.

 _Yes, I’m sorry_ , he thinks and McCoy’s mouth crashes against Jim’s, sucking at his booze bitter tongue like a life-line, pulling him in, closer, closer… Jim’s lips taste so right, of everything good McCoy wants and needs – he’s had it with sour and bile and his veins fill up with joy and want and aggression.

Jim keens against him; he’s got a hand in McCoy’s hair, another fumbles at his flies. They’re both panting and McCoy’s certain the guard must be watching this at the desk, jerking off. Shit _he_ would be. Who could resist this beauty, this energy – and McCoy’s damned if he’s going to keep trying to say no – another time, he’ll think about what this means, but, for now all he wants to think about is _this_. Every impulse in his body and mind focused on Jim’s tongue and cock and his heartbeat in his throat and more, _more_.

Jim manages to find what they’ve always dubbed a ‘single-serving’ packet of lube in McCoy’s coin pocket and tears it open with his teeth. McCoy takes one last gulp at Jim’s cock and stands, takes a good look at the wanton image before him, Jim’s pants are round his ankles, biker boots without laces, his shirt’s hanging on by the one sleeve, the other half hanging past his hip and he’s beautiful, truly beautiful; he reminds McCoy of those paintings of Saint Sebastian shot full of arrows, eyes turned heavenwards and McCoy wants to swallow him whole. He knows it’s wrong, fucked up, but this is his healing and McCoy’s gonna take his medicine like a good boy and worry about what this means later.

Jim kicks one boot off and shakes away the leg of his pants, but he’s in too much of a hurry to remove the other. McCoy preps him quickly, roughly – it’ll have to do, the kid’s relaxed now, back to himself and he likes a little burn so, “Up,” McCoy insists, bending his knees to get the right angle and grabbing Jim’s hips so he can hop up and wrap his legs around McCoy’s waist. McCoy wipes the excess lube on Jim’s shirt, and his cock nudges at Jim’s entrance, but it’s an awkward angle so he supports Jim’s weight and carries him to the wall by the small window where Jim can stretch up and hold onto the bars to get some leverage.

“Fuck me, Bones, come on, fuck _me_ ,” Jim pants. McCoy has run out of fight and anger and he tilts his hips up and back, temporarily loosening his hold on Jim’s hips so he can line his cock up. Jim meets him half way, spreading his ass cheeks with one hand while using the other to steady them with the bars.

“Jesus, Jim”, McCoy grunts when he eases in past the first ring of muscle, “I’m not gonna last long, I--

“ _Go_ , just do it!”

They thrust together and with a couple of pushes he’s buried to the hilt and it feels so fucking good, it’s like he’s the one being filled up. Jim grips the bars, and swings outwards so McCoy’s got room to move and he sets up a desperate pace – there’s no other word that will do, he thinks, he just _needs_ this. He squints up at Jim, his eyes are on McCoy, his eyebrows dark, drawn together and he mumbles an incessant stream of encouragement and instruction - bossy little shit.

“Yes, Bones, there, God – _there_!”

Maybe it’s the fear of getting caught, maybe it’s ‘cause he hasn’t slept in twenty four hours or maybe it’s because they’ve decided to try out something as dumb as this, like you’d find in the back end of an Orion Pleasure Holo, but even though every nerve-ending is wired, McCoy feels like he’s never going to get there.

His forehead’s on Jim’s ribcage, his tongue’s salt slicked from sweat, and his thighs are shuddering under Jim’s weight then, he gets it – he can’t come ‘cause he doesn’t want it to end; he has no idea when he’ll see Jim again, and once this is over, well – it might be _over_. A taste of Jim and he just wants more. He’s addicted, helpless. What a jerk he is.

Jim doesn’t need him, he doesn’t need anyone, McCoy knows this – what Jim said earlier, it was just to get McCoy going, so he’ll fuck him and Jim will get off – it didn’t mean squat; Jim was drunk, tired, not thinking straight. And, even if it was a chink in his armour, look at him now, on top of the world, rising and falling above him. He looks like something out of a diabolical crucifixion scene – his arms flexed above his head, the shadow of hair under his arms and McCoy buries his face in Jim’s chest again, hiding from him.

“God this feels good, you’re so _fucking tight_ , fuck… _Jim_ …”

He hears how Jim’s breathing changes, feels his hips still, and McCoy looks up, sees Jim’s head fall back, then forward, sees the bruises he’s sucked into his neck. Jim’s eyes are closed when he cries,

“Gonna come, Bones, fuck… _oh…fuck_ …”

And Jim’s eyes are wide, on fire and on _him_ ; his forehead’s creased in disbelief or something else McCoy can’t quite fathom, and then Jim’s hand drops from the bar as he rides out his orgasm and when he reaches down for McCoy’s face, that just _kills_ him, that moment of connection, and McCoy’s own orgasm shatters through him and his legs buckle and they both slump against the wall; the burn in his legs, the fire in his belly seemingly never ending, with the sound of Jim saying his name softly above him, his hand in McCoy’s hair, the salt in his mouth flooding his senses until the pounding on the door brings him back to reality with a crash.

They’re both laughing uncontrollably and collapse in a tangle on the stone floor.

+++

“Why do they even still have bars in jail?” Jim grins, and pulls his pants on with no sense of urgency.

“’ cos they’re scary, maybe…” McCoy grins, “and it’s not ‘technically’ jail at all, is it?”

“Maybe, not…” Jim looks serious and leans over to plant another of his enigmatic kisses on McCoy’s forehead.

“Thanks, old man—“

McCoy raises an eyebrow, zips his jacket to cover his shirt wet with come and their combined sweat, still damp on the outside from the downpour earlier. “You’re welcome.” Then he adds, “You okay, Jim?”

“Sure, never been better!”

McCoy decides he must have imagined the moment of vulnerability that he was projecting so he could make sense of their exchange and he decides then and there that this has to stop: he needs to give Jim up before they both go down.

Sure, Pike got them out this one time, but Jim’s surely on life number nine by now…

+++

Jim swaggers to the desk, the clerk’s eyes flicker towards the pair of them, then back down to their shit on the counter when Jim winks at him and slips his arm through McCoy’s. McCoy scoops up his wallet, and Jim’s packet of cigarettes, more lube (Jim’s), and Jim’s mini-hypo. He’s glad to see that no matter how fucking feckless Jim is, he still takes care of his allergies.

They stride through the door to the steps without a backward look.

McCoy knows Jim won’t come back with him – it’s daylight, everything in San Fran looks normal and the two of them as a ‘pair’ don’t fit into this scenario.

“I’m heading off,” McCoy says so it sounds like his decision. “See you around.” He prevents his voice from lilting up, so it doesn’t sound like a question. “You okay…I mean, you know, I don’t need to run the regen over you or anything?” His voice trails off as he watches Jim stretch, spin round to look at him one last time.

“Know something, Bonesy, I’m fucking A. I’m the most centred person you’ll meet.” There’s that smirk. You can’t get sub-text past Jim Kirk.

“Then, God help us all – the Federation’s screwed.”

And with that, Jim bounces down the steps, turns left and disappears into the morning.

 **~FIN~**

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N – I _know_ they won’t have bars in cells in the 23rd Century – but who am I to stand in the way of Kirk/McCoy fun?
> 
>  
> 
> Feedback is love!
> 
> The masterlist of all my fanfiction is here. 


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